Between the second and third choirs in the side-chapels, are the
tombs of Sebert, King of the East Saxons, who built this church with
stone: and
Of Margaret of Richmond, mother of Henry VII., grandmother of Henry
VIII.; she gave this monastery to the monks of Winbourne, {3} who
preached and taught grammar all England over, and appointed salaries
to two professors of divinity, one at Oxford, another at Cambridge,
where she founded two colleges to Christ and to John His disciple.
She died A.D. 1463, on the third of the calends of July.
And of Margaret, Countess of Lenox, grandmother of James VI., King
of Scotland.
William of Valance, half-brother of Henry III.
The Earl of Cornwall, brother of Edward III.
Upon another tomb is an honorary inscription for Frances, Duchess of
Suffolk. The sense of it is,
That titles, royal birth, riches, or a large family, are of no
avail:
That all are transitory; virtue alone resisting the funeral pile.
That this lady was first married to a duke, then to Stoke, a
gentleman;
And lastly, by the grave espoused to CHRIST.
The next is the tomb of Lord Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford,
whose lady composed the following Greek and Latin verses, and had
them engraved on the marble:-
How was I startled at the cruel feast,
By death's rude hands in horrid manner drest;
Such grief as sure no hapless woman knew,
When thy pale image lay before my view.
Thy father's heir in beauteous form arrayed
Like flowers in spring, and fair, like them to fade;
Leaving behind unhappy wretched me,
And all thy little orphan-progeny:
Alike the beauteous face, the comely air,
The tongue persuasive, and the actions fair,
Decay:
